I've heard that Sheriff Joe defied a judge's order not once but many times, which begs the question: is it OK to not respect Law & Order (TM) if it does not go your way?
/s/Really sad that there isn't an appeals process that one can use if (s)he's not pleased with a judge's decision./s/

Sadly, in this case it is obliquely true. Trump pardoned Arpaio not because it was right, but because it would increase his popularity in certain circles. Trump said it himself, it would get good ratings (which doesn't necessarily mean something is popular as many people are watching the Harvey disaster news, but in Trump's mind, any attention is approving attention.)

The way he phrased it, it certainly seems as though he wanted the pardon to get a lot of attention (whereas politicians sometimes like to spring unpleasant news late on Friday in the hopes that people will miss it over the weekend; and some speculated that he hoped it would actually be buried under the storm news). Which, to me, would suggest he's sending a message -- whether that's "I take care of people who support me," or "Brutality and abuse of civil rights is perfectly OK as long as it's supposedly targeted at stopping illegal immigration," or "I only care about conservative white voters," or "You're going to call me a racist anyway, so NFBSK it," or some combination of these.

Conservatives are trying to make a point that Arpaio wasn't allowed a jury trial. Supreme court precedents say a jury trial is not a legal right for "trivial" cases where the maximum punishment is 6 months or less in jail.

Plus, Arpaio pleaded guilty so exactly what would a jury trial have accomplished? (Other than giving hem a pulpit.)

EDIT: BTW, using Arpaio's supporters' viewpoint that there should always be the option to a jury trial would mean that undocumented workers would all be entitled to jury trials.

Last edited by jimmy101_again; 29 August 2017 at 06:06 PM.
Reason: last paragraph added

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Everyone that admits to a crime is still convicted by a judge.

But I was wrong, he hadn't plead guilty (I thought I had seen that.) But still, it was a misdemeanor case.

And given his age the chances of the maximum jail time of 6 months was pretty much zero. And any monetary penalty would have been easily paid by the various funding pleads based on keeping the 85 year-old "patriot" out of jail. The fund raising schemes don't mention it is a misdemeanor conviction with basically zero chance of actual jail time.

I didn't claim there was a parallel between this case and the OJ Simpson case. I said that even being acquitted does not necessarily mean you can't lose a civil suit. That is what I meant, and the only thing I meant.